The type material of Melipona postica Latreille, the type species of the stingless bee genus Scaptotrigona Moure (Hymenoptera, Apidae)

ABSTRACT The present contribution deals with the recognition of the type material of Melipona postica Latreille and the identity of the taxon it represents. The origin of the specimens studied by Illiger and Klug, and which Illiger later sent to Latreille, is traced to Francisco Agostinho Gomes, who collected the material in Salvador, Bahia, and sent them to the Count von Hoffmansegg, in Prussia. Based on material located at the Museum für Naturkunde, in Berlin, a lectotype is designated for Melipona postica Latreille. The specimen is redescribed and illustrated. The name Scaptotrigona xanthotricha Moure is placed as a synonym of S. postica.

The origin of the stingless bee species described by Frederick Smith from Brazilian specimens brought to the London International Exhibition of 1862

ABSTRACT For a long time, the provenance of the specimens used by Frederick Smith to describe the species of stingless bees from Brazil remained a mystery. The recent digitalization of 19th century publications has made possible to trace the origin of the material brought to the London International Exhibition of 1862 by the Brazilian delegation. We document that the bee specimens showed at the International Exhibition, and that served as type material of the species described by Smith, were collected by Manuel Ferreira Lagos, head of the Zoology section of the Comissão Científica de Exploração, during their stay in Ceará, from 1859 to 1861. Even if late, it is important to give due credit to the Comissão Científica de Exploração, and more specifically to Lagos, for the contribution to the knowledge of the stingless bee fauna from Brazil.

Synopsis of the wasp genus Clystopsenella Kieffer (Hymenoptera: Scolebythidae).

Scolebythidae are ectoparasitoid wasps which develop gregariously as idiobionts on wood-boring beetle larvae. Among them, the genus Clystopsenella is restricted to the Neotropical region and the eastern coast of Australia. The genus also includes a fossil species, Clystopsenella mirabilis Engel, 2015, from Miocene Dominican amber. In the present study we review the genus Clystopsenella and describe a new species from Costa Rica, Clystopsenella pacifica sp. nov. A key to the extant and extinct species is provided. The type locality of Clystopsenella longiventris Kieffer, 1911 is reinterpreted based on the original labels. The distribution of the genus is mostly confined to woodlands under tropical and subtropical climates. The biology of scolebythids is discussed based on a new host record for C. longiventris.

Taxonomic revision of Augochloropsis (Glyptochlora) Moure, a rare bee subgenus from the Amazon Basin (Hymenoptera: Halictinae).

We revise the bee subgenus Augochloropsis (Glyptochlora) and recognize four species in the group. Three new species are described, Augochloropsis peruviana n. sp., Augochloropsis ticuna n. sp. and Augochloropsis atrocyanea n. sp. and the type species, Augochloropsis ornata (Smith, 1879), is re-described. The descriptions were based on females collected in the Amazon Basin forests from Colombia, Peru, and Brazil. The disjunct distribution exhibited by A. (Glyptochlora) with respect its nearest phylogenetic group Augochloropsis (Glyptobasia), with species only present in the Atlantic Forest of eastern Brazil, is discussed in light of current knowledge about other taxa with similar distribution pattern. This is new evidence for an already well-established pattern of disjunct distributions of some bee taxa between these two biomes. An identification key for the species and a distribution map are also provided.

Evolution of andrenine bees reveals a long and complex history of faunal interchanges through the Americas during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.

Bees are presumed to have arisen in the early to mid-Cretaceous coincident with the fragmentation of the southern continents and concurrently with the early diversification of the flowering plants. Here, we apply DNA sequences from multiple genes to recover a dated phylogeny and historical biogeographic of andrenine bees, a large group of 3000 species mainly distributed in arid areas of North America, South America, and the Palearctic region. Our results corroborate the monophyly of Andreninae and points toward a South America origin for the group during the Late Cretaceous. Overall, we provide strong evidence of amphitropical distributional pattern currently observed in the American continent as result of faunal interchange in at least three historical periods, much prior to the Panama Isthmus closure. The Palearctic diversity is shown to have arisen from North America during the Eocene and Miocene, and the Afrotropical lineages likely originated from the Palearctic region in the Miocene when the Sahara Desert was mostly vegetated. The incursions from South to North America and then onto the Old World are chronological congruent with periods when open-vegetation habitats were available for trans-continental dispersal and at the times when aridification and temperature decline offered favorable circumstances for bee diversification.

The bee subtribe Epanthidiina, a new taxon for the Neotropical clade of Anthidiini (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Megachilinae)

ABSTRACT Anthidiini comprise a large, diversified, and widely distributed tribe of megachiline bees. Recently, morphological and molecular analyses recovered five major monophyletic groups within the tribe. For this reason, we review the current classification of the tribe, giving status of subtribe to these lineages. A new subtribe, Epanthidiina (type genus: Epanthidium Moure), is proposed for a large group restricted to the Neotropical region. Morphological and molecular phylogenetic hypotheses support the taxonomic limits of the new subtribe. We also propose a new genus, Urbanthidium (type species: Anthodioctes gracilis Urban), in order to accommodate results from a previous study in which Anthodioctes Holmberg came out paraphyletic. Two species are transferred to the new genus: Urbanthidium gracile (Urban) comb. n., Urbanthidium psaenythioides (Holmberg) comb. n.

A new species of the bee genus Paratetrapedia from northeastern Brazil mimic of the stingless bee Camargoia nordestina (Apidae, Tapinotaspidini)

Abstract The northeastern region in Brazil comprises a complex of endemic areas mostly known for the species inhabiting the dry Caatinga and wet Atlantic forests. Here, we describe the new bee species Paratetrapedia nordestina sp. nov. (Tapinotaspidini), which occurs in enclaves of semi-deciduous forests in the western limits of Ceará and in eastern Piaui state, in northeastern Brazil. A key to both males and females of the lineata group in Paratetrapedia, including the new species, is provided. We also provide a discussion about its mimetic partner, map of distribution, and main illustrations of the two involved species.

Three new genera of Protandrenini bees from South America (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Andreninae)

ABSTRACT Three new genera of Protandrenini bees from South America are described. Luisanthrena new genus is proposed to include L. ruzae, new species (from Ecuador) and L. vargasllosai (Gonzalez & Alvarado, 2019), new combination (from Peru). The new genus Cisanthrena includes only the unusual species Cisanthrena perforata n. sp. from forested areas of the Andes in Peru. In addition, Austellurgus new genus is proposed to accommodate A. avulsus (Ramos & Melo, 2006), new combination (southeastern Brazil).

Biogeography and early diversification of Tapinotaspidini oil-bees support presence of Paleocene savannas in South America.

Worldwide distributed tropical savannas were established only in the Miocene, with climatic cooling and rise of C4 grasses. However, there is evidence for an earlier presence of savanna-like vegetation in southern parts of South America. Here we investigated the biogeographic history of a clade of solitary bees which have endemic groups in areas covered by savannas and other types of open vegetation as well as forested areas. We hypothesized that these bees originated in savanna-like biomes and that shifts to forested areas and floral host shifts increased species diversification along their evolutionary history. We reconstructed a comprehensive phylogeny for Tapinotaspidini bees based majorly on original DNA sequences. We then used macroevolutionary tools to estimate ancestral range area and reconstructed ancestral habitat (open versus forested) and host plant association to analyze the effects of shifts in vegetation type and flower hosts on their diversification. Tapinotaspidini bees originated in the Paleocene and in a savanna-type, Cerrado-like, which is reinforced by reconstruction of open vegetation as the most probable ancestral area, thus bringing additional evidence to a much earlier origin of this vegetation type in South America. Shifts to forested areas occurred at least three times in a period of 30 Ma and were responsible for slight increases in diversification rates. Malpighiaceae is the ancestral floral host; host broadening occurred only in the Miocene and at least in three occasions. Host shifts, i.e. from Malpighiaceae to other oil families, occurred in the Eocene and Miocene. Both host broadening and host shifts did not significantly alter diversification rates, however exploitation of other oil sources were important in occupying new habitats. The link between biomes and host plant shifts and changes in diversification rate brings us additional insights into the evolution of bees and associated flora in South America.

Homoplasy-Based Partitioning Outperforms Alternatives in Bayesian Analysis of Discrete Morphological Data.

Bayesian analysis of morphological data is becoming increasingly popular mainly (but not only) because it allows for time-calibrated phylogenetic inference using relaxed morphological clocks and tip dating whenever fossils are available. As with molecular data, recent studies have shown that modeling among-character rate variation (ACRV) in morphological matrices greatly improves phylogenetic inference. In a likelihood framework this may be accomplished, for instance, by employing a hidden Markov model to assign characters to rate categories drawn from a (discretized) $\Gamma$ distribution and/or by partitioning data sets according to rate heterogeneity and estimating per-partition branch lengths, conditioned on a single topology. While the first approach is available in many phylogenetic analysis software, there is still no clear consensus on how to partition data, except perhaps in the simplest cases (e.g., "by codon" partitioning of coding sequences). Additionally, there is a trade-off between improvement in likelihood scores and the number of free parameters in the analysis, which rises quickly with the number of partitions. This trade-off may be dealt with by employing statistics that penalize overfitting of complex models, such as Akaike or Bayesian information criteria, or the more recently introduced stepping-stone method for marginal likelihood approximation. We applied the latter to three distinct matrices of discrete morphological data and demonstrated that sorting characters by homoplasy scores (obtained from implied weighting parsimony analysis) outperformed other partitioning strategies (anatomically-based and PartitionFinder2). The method was in fact so efficient in segregating characters by rates of evolution that no within-partition ACRV modeling was necessary, while among-partition rate variation was adequately accommodated by rate multipliers. We conclude that partitioning by homoplasy is a powerful and easy-to-implement strategy to address ACRV in complex data sets. We provide some guidelines focusing on morphological matrices, although this approach may be also applicable to molecular data sets.

New genus of fossil apoid wasps (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) from the Cretaceous amber of Myanmar

ABSTRACT The new genus †Burmasphex is proposed for two fossil species, †Burmasphex sulcatus sp. nov. and †Burmasphex pilosus sp. nov., described from Myanmar Cretaceous amber. It exhibits many plesiomorphic features in relation to the extant Apoidea and is here provisionally allocated in the extinct family †Angarosphecidae.

Bees as hosts of mutillid wasps in the Neotropical region (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Mutillidae)

ABSTRACT A review of bee species used as hosts of mutillid wasps in the Neotropical region is presented. Three new confirmed host records are provided for the mutillid species Hoplomutilla biplagiata Mickel, 1939, Pappognatha limes Mickel, 1939, and Tallium aracati Casal, 1962. Two potential host records are provided for Euspinolia rufula Mickel, 1938 and Lophomutilla inca Fritz and Pagliano, 1993. Additionally, Mutilla hoplitiformis Strand, 1909, is transferred to the genus Darditilla. Correlations between host nesting habits and female mutillid morphology are discussed. Lastly, all known confirmed and potential host records in the Neotropical region are compiled.

New species of the stingless bee genus Schwarziana (Hymenoptera, Apidae)

ABSTRACT Two new species of the stingless bee genus Schwarziana from Brazil are described and illustrated. Schwarziana bocainensis sp. nov. is described from Serra da Bocaina, in São Paulo, and S. chapadensis sp. nov. is described from Chapada dos Veadeiros, in Goiás. An identification key to workers of the known species of Schwarziana is provided.

Changes in Orchid Bee Communities Across Forest-Agroecosystem Boundaries in Brazilian Atlantic Forest Landscapes.

Deforestation has dramatically reduced the extent of Atlantic Forest cover in Brazil. Orchid bees are key pollinators in neotropical forest, and many species are sensitive to anthropogenic interference. In this sense understanding the matrix permeability for these bees is important for maintaining genetic diversity and pollination services. Our main objective was to assess whether the composition, abundance, and diversity of orchid bees in matrices differed from those in Atlantic forest. To do this we sampled orchid bees at 4-mo intervals from 2007 to 2009 in remnants of Atlantic Forest, and in the surrounding pasture and eucalyptus matrices. The abundance, richness, and diversity of orchid bees diminished significantly from the forest fragment toward the matrix points in the eucalyptus and pasture. Some common or intermediate species in the forest areas, such as Eulaema cingulata (F.) and Euglossa fimbriata Moure, respectively, become rare species in the matrices. Our results show that the orchid bee community is affected by the matrices surrounding the forest fragments. They also suggest that connections between forest fragments need to be improved using friendly matrices that can provide more favorable conditions for bees and increase their dispersal between fragments.

Gain and loss of specialization in two oil-bee lineages, Centris and Epicharis (Apidae).

It is plausible that specialized ecological interactions constrain geographic ranges. We address this question in neotropical bees, Centris and Epicharis, that collect oils from flowers of Calceolariaceae, Iridaceae, Krameriaceae, Malpighiaceae, Plantaginaceae, or Solanaceae, with different species exploiting between one and five of these families, which either have epithelial oil glands or hair fields. We plotted the level of oil-host specialization on a clock-dated phylogeny for 22 of the 35 species of Epicharis and 72 of the 230 species of Centris (genera that are not sister genera) and calculated geographic ranges (km(2) ) for 23 bee species based on collection data from museum specimens. Of the oil-offering plants, the Malpighiaceae date to the Upper Cretaceous, whereas the other five families are progressively younger. The stem and crown groups of the two bee genera date to the Cretaceous, Eocene, and Oligocene. Shifts between oil hosts from different families are common in Centris, but absent in Epicharis, and the direction is from flowers with epithelial oil glands to flowers with oil hairs, canalized by bees' oil-collecting apparatuses, suitable for piercing epithelia or mopping oil from hair fields. With the current data, a link between host specialization and geographic range size could not be detected.

A new species of the ant-hunter genus Tracheliodes Morawitz (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae: Crabronini) from Brazil.

Tracheliodes leclercqi sp. n., a new species of the ant-hunter genus Tracheliodes Morawitz, is described from southeastern Brazil. It closely resembles T. cutucu Cooper, 1988 and the main differences between the two species are presented. Photographs of type specimens of T. leclercqi sp. n., as well as of a female and a male paratypes of T. cutucu, are provided.

A new combination for the bembicine genus Selman Parker, 1929 (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae).

The identity of Monedula diana Handlirsch, 1890 is reassessed and the species is transferred to the monotypic genus Selman, which now includes two species, S. diana n. comb. and S. notatus (Taschenberg, 1870). The main differences between the two species are presented. Photographs of the holotype of Monedula diana are provided and its putative type locality is discussed. Also new distribution records are provided for S. notatus.

Notes on the systematics of the orchid-bee genus Eulaema (Hymenoptera, Apidae)

Notes on the systematics of the orchid-bee genus Eulaema (Hymenoptera, Apidae). The classification of the genus Eulaema is modified in order to make it congruent with recent phylogenetic hypotheses based on molecular data. The speciosa group, containing E. peruviana, E. speciosa and related species, is removed from E. (Eulaema) and transferred to E. (Apeulaema). New morphological characters are presented to support the revised scope of the subgenera and their diagnostic features are revised. Six species groups are recognized herein: two in E. (Apeulaema) and four in E. (Eulaema). A list of valid species in each species group and an identification key to males of each of the subgenera and species groups are provided. Finally, an older overlooked designation of a type species for Eulaema is presented in the Appendix.

The corbiculate bees arose from New World oil-collecting bees: implications for the origin of pollen baskets.

The economically most important group of bees is the "corbiculates", or pollen basket bees, some 890 species of honeybees (Apis), bumblebees (Bombus), stingless bees (Meliponini), and orchid bees (Euglossini). Molecular studies have indicated that the corbiculates are closest to the New World genera Centris, with 230 species, and Epicharis, with 35, albeit without resolving the precise relationships. Instead of concave baskets, these bees have hairy hind legs on which they transport pollen mixed with floral oil, collected with setae on the anterior and middle legs. We sampled two-thirds of all Epicharis, a third of all Centris, and representatives of the four lineages of corbiculates for four nuclear gene regions, obtaining a well-supported phylogeny that has the corbiculate bees nested inside the Centris/Epicharis clade. Fossil-calibrated molecular clocks, combined with a biogeographic reconstruction incorporating insights from the fossil record, indicate that the corbiculate clade arose in the New World and diverged from Centris 84 (72-95)mya. The ancestral state preceding corbiculae thus was a hairy hind leg, perhaps adapted for oil transport as in Epicharis and Centris bees. Its replacement by glabrous, concave baskets represents a key innovation, allowing efficient transport of plant resins and large pollen/nectar loads and freeing the corbiculate clade from dependence on oil-offering flowers. The transformation could have involved a novel function of Ubx, the gene known to change hairy into smooth pollen baskets in Apis and Bombus.